Of the top 10 basketball teams in the country, Kentucky is last in continuity, time with the team. Obviously, their avg time with the team for the main rotation players is 1 year. Duke is the only other team with an average of less than 1.6 seasons with the team. Duke is also the only team that has freshmen making up the majority of their rotation guys leading to an average length of experience to be the lowest overall at just 2.3 seasons of experience. Houston leads the way with the continuity at nearly 3 years in the program on average, 2.75
2. Marquette—2.7
3. Auburn—2.3
4. MSU—2.2
5. UT-2.0
6. Florida—1.9
7. ISU—1.8
8. Alabama—1.6
9. Duke—1.3
10. UK—1.0
I bring this up to also compare that experience to defensive efficiency ranking. The average defensive efficiency ranking of the other 9 teams with more continuity in the program is 12.6. Experience together, in a program is a huge deal for having good defense. Case in point is Alabama, they were 121st last year and this year they are 31. Florida, same thing. 76th to 19. Duke is the only outlier in the experience and continuity metric in the defensive efficiency.
Kentucky’s biggest way to improve on that end won’t be this year, but going forward and having better athletes that also stay in the program for multiple years. Offenses are too good now to have an inexperienced, as far as in the program together, team and consistently have a good defense.
That’s not to say we should just not talk about the defensive woes, just something I went through and looked at when I was bored at work last night.
2. Marquette—2.7
3. Auburn—2.3
4. MSU—2.2
5. UT-2.0
6. Florida—1.9
7. ISU—1.8
8. Alabama—1.6
9. Duke—1.3
10. UK—1.0
I bring this up to also compare that experience to defensive efficiency ranking. The average defensive efficiency ranking of the other 9 teams with more continuity in the program is 12.6. Experience together, in a program is a huge deal for having good defense. Case in point is Alabama, they were 121st last year and this year they are 31. Florida, same thing. 76th to 19. Duke is the only outlier in the experience and continuity metric in the defensive efficiency.
Kentucky’s biggest way to improve on that end won’t be this year, but going forward and having better athletes that also stay in the program for multiple years. Offenses are too good now to have an inexperienced, as far as in the program together, team and consistently have a good defense.
That’s not to say we should just not talk about the defensive woes, just something I went through and looked at when I was bored at work last night.
